


let’s be clear, i’ll trust no one

by illuminatedcities



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Masturbation, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, d/s dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 08:06:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5156405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminatedcities/pseuds/illuminatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re not expendable,” Mr. Finch had said, standing too close to him, and even though John had the advantage of height over him, John’s knees were nearly buckling at the unyielding expression on his face, those clear blue eyes staring him down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let’s be clear, i’ll trust no one

**Author's Note:**

> Ages ago, nightwolfslair pitched a story idea to me that went like this: "But look, what if Harold worked for the _government_ and had his own black ops thing going on, and then recruits John to help him?"  
>  So obviously I ran with that, took about 50 years to write it and finally finished it this week ;)
> 
> Nightwolfslair helped develop this fic pretty much from the ground up, this is her baby, too <333
> 
> Thanks to my lovely beta Sky and also to Dana, who inspires me to finish things so that I can capslock at her about them later. <3
> 
> Title from “Elastic Heart” by Sia.

**PART I: JOHN**

“I’m afraid that is confidential, Mr. Reese,” Ingram says with the same perpetually amused expression he’s been displaying all day, sliding a key card against an electrical lock next to the door.

“What a surprising development,” John drawls.

Ingram chuckles. He leans closer to the panel.

“ _Ingram, Nathan, Security level 5.”_

The little light changes from red to green, and the door opens with a pneumatic hiss.

“You might want to work on that tone, Mr. Reese,” Ingram offers, but there is no heat behind it. “Maybe your S.O. at the CIA didn’t mind you talking back to them, but I can assure you that your new boss will.”

“A stickler for procedure, then?” John asks, following him through the door.

Ingram looks even _more_ amused at that.

“He doesn’t like insubordination, is all,” Ingram says, and then something else that John doesn’t catch because he is walking into a huge command center.

The room is outfitted with a large wall of monitors, all showing different images: Surveillance footage, something that looks like the feed of an infrared camera, a few just showing lines of computer code, drizzling down the screens like rain.

In the middle of it all, a man with thickly framed glasses is standing in a three-piece-suit, hands flying over a keyboard.

“Harold,” Ingram says, and John instantly corrects his initial assessment from 'employee' to 'friend'.

“I gave the CIA agent you requested the grand tour already. This is Mr. -“

“John Reese, I’ve been working with agent Stanton,” John says.

The man gives him an unimpressed look before turning back to Ingram.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Reese, if I wish to hear you talking, I’ll let you know,” he says, his voice all _soft_ , but John’s spine straightens at the steel beneath it: John has been trained to pick up even subtle orders, and this one felt like hitting a brick wall at full speed.

He closes his mouth and waits for further instructions.

When Ingram looks at John, there's an amused slant to his mouth. If he has something to say, he keeps it to himself.

“His security status is 2, for the time being, the request should go through until noon.”

The man - _Harold,_ John thinks – has picked up a touch pad, simultaneously considering some kind of code pattern. Coordinating two different tasks while listening to whatever is spoken in the small earpiece he carries doesn't seem particularly taxing to him.

“That won’t do, he’ll need full access.”

Ingram huffs.

“Well, considering the fact that not even _I_ have full security clearance, I’ll do my best not to be offended.”

Harold gives him a look over the rim of his glasses, and John tries his best to focus on something else instead. He doesn't know who the guy is, but it's pretty obvious that he's calling the shots. John has known drill sergeants with less authority.

“You don't get full clearance because you're a terrible gossip,” Harold says.

He turns to John.

“I trust you're more discreet than that, Mr. Reese?”

John swallows.

“Yes, Sir.”

His gaze is unreadable, then he says: “Wear a tie next time, this isn't a CIA field office.”

When John leaves the command center, he has the strange sensation that somebody reached inside of him and _twisted._

**\--**

“So, you're the new kid?”

John turns around from where he is pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Two women are standing in the doorway of the coffee kitchen: the right one is leaning against the door frame, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. She wears black nail polish and a lazy smirk that makes John want to reach for his gun.

“Hey,” John says. “I guess I am, yeah.”

The other women shoulders past her with an annoyed expression and opens the fridge, tapping her fingers on the counter impatiently.

“Leave him alone, Root, this isn't going to be another Dillinger-situation.”

“Dillinger-situation?” John asks.

Root walks by him, swaying her hips and watching his reaction.

“Aww, Sameen, you never let me have any fun.”

“Dillinger was the last guy Finch hired to work the irrelevant numbers,” Sameen explains, wolfing down a turkey sandwich. “Root got him to quit after two weeks because she was annoying the fuck out of him.”

She shrugs, licking mayonnaise from her fingers, then adds: “I mean, she annoys the fuck out of everyone except for the boss, so.”

“I'm not annoying,” Root says. “And Harold and I have a very special relationship.”

“You wish,” Sameen mutters and dives down to look for more food.

Root turns back to John.

“So, your name is Reese, yes?”

“John,” he answers, and holds out a hand.

Root looks at him as if he handed her a dead pigeon.

“I'm Shaw,” the woman in front of the fridge says, chewing with her mouth open. “If you call me Sameen, I'll break your nose. Clear?”

“Very,” John says. “There's some roast beef you didn't eat yet.”

Sameen flips him off, but reaches for the roast beef anyway.

“You CIA?”

John gives her a blank stare.

She makes a gesture with her hand. “You Langley boys are all the same, tense and mysterious with your suits and shit. Also Nathan kind of told the whole office, he's chatty like that.”

“It's always exciting when Harold requests a new helper monkey,” Root says dreamily, patting his arm. “The bets are already running how long you'll hold out.”

“Okay,” John says. “What... exactly is this operation about? I keep hearing about numbers and machines and irrelevants, I'd really like to know what's going on.”

“I'm sure you would,” Root says, winking at him.

“You'll figure it out,” Sameen says through a mouthful of food.

She swallows her last bite, grabs a drink from the fridge and turns to leave. Root following suit behind her, casually slipping a hand into the back pocket of her jeans.

“Hey, Reese?” Shaw calls over her shoulder. “Don't call him _Harold_ in any case, yeah?”

“Spoilsport,” Root mutters.

John is starting to get a bad feeling about this.

**\--**

The job, as it turns out, isn't half bad: the missions are mostly surveillance, the occasional fistfight, tracking people down.

The people involved are all civilians: cases of domestic violence, people who get mixed up in violent crimes, mob business, blackmail.

John gets an earpiece that connects him to the base and feeds him information during his missions.

Mostly, it's Root at the other end, commenting on everything from his choice of clothing to his fighting technique. He manages to tune her out most of the time, and her intel more than makes up for it: she hacks systems with breakneck speed, gives him codes and access before he even thinks to ask. (After a few weeks, she stops referring to him as 'helper monkey', for which John is secretly grateful.)

It's _pleasant_ , in a way: Getting to kneecap people instead of shooting them in the head, having thankful numbers hug him after he saves their lives.

He doesn't get the whole _machine –_ thing Root and Shaw are sometimes about: As far as he gets it, there is some kind of black ops team generating intel about people in danger and sending out their social security numbers. There is a whole separate operation that is concerned with national security, but most of that seems to go down in the command center and behind closed doors, and John is grateful for every secret he doesn't have to keep.

John starts to get into a comfortable routine after a few weeks, relying on the intel and getting his missions done with minimal collateral damage.

After a while, Ingram gives him old file reports to read and asks him to write reports about his missions and hand them in after each day. The debriefing is usually talking to Ingram or Root, explaining what he did during the day, and then getting to go home into the apartment John has rented, for a shower and some dinner.

In retrospect, he should have known that it was a little too good to be true.

–

“Get out of there,” Root says in his earpiece, voice as sharp as broken glass, and John says “The number is still in the building, in the company of a bomb that will go off at any moment.”

“Listen, Reese, you have clear orders to --”

“Sorry, the connection is really bad, can't really hear you,” John mutters, reaching to his ear to turn off the earpiece.

Granted, he has to jump through a window and gets punched in the chin for his troubles, and just moments after he carries out the number – a young waitress who got abducted by her fiancée – the whole building blows up, but a certain amount of risk has always been part of his day job.

At least that's what John is telling himself when Root corners him back at the base of operations and tells him in a quiet, dangerous voice: “That was fucking stupid, Reese. The boss wants to see you.”

John swallows and sits down in the waiting area in front of Mr. Finch's office.

Well, at least it took him more than two weeks to screw up.

–

John barely manages to close his apartment door behind him before he undoes his belt with shaking fingers and shoves a hand down his pants.

He’s been desperately hard through his entire drive home, pretty much since the moment Mr. Finch - _Harold_ , his mind supplies helpfully, and John groans – told him to come into his office.

Finch was waiting for him, mouth in a firm, unhappy line.

He got up from his desk and stood in front of John, instantly launching into a stern lecture about how John should better stop being reckless with his own life on missions.

John could feel himself taking a step back until he was pressed against the cool wood of the door, and this was new, too, John facing somebody who made him want to _please_ , to be good.

Mr. Finch kept going on about how he had invested too much in the operation just so an ex-soldier with a death wish could get himself killed, disapproval dripping from his voice and his tone sharp and clipped.

John lets his bag slide from his shoulder and takes a few steps until he can fall down onto the couch and get his pants all the way off. He puts a hand over his groin and strokes himself through his boxers where his hard-on is tenting the fabric.

Mr. Finch, with his immaculate suits and the way he stands in front of that wall of monitors in the command center, a dozen people waiting for his orders. Mr. Finch, with his special unit of absurdly qualified people, hackers and retired spies and ex spooks, who chose John’s file out of a whole stack of Delta Force members, all equally capable, probably even _more_ capable than him. And yet, y _et,_ Mr. Finch had picked _him_ , for some absurd, unfathomable reason--

“You’re not expendable,” Mr. Finch had said, standing too close, and even though John had the advantage of height over him, John’s knees were nearly buckling at the unyielding expression on his face, those clear blue eyes staring him down.

“Yes, understood,” John had said, and then “ _Sir_ ”, letting it roll off his tongue easily.

Mr. Finch had huffed at the address, waved his hand around like he didn’t consider himself military, as if John wasn’t standing at attention right in front of him, his back almost painfully straight.

John hooks his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and pulls them down, his cock springing free, and he draws in a sharp breath at the first touch of his hand on naked skin, so turned on that he can barely stand it.

He unbuttons his shirt and pushes up his undershirt so he can trail his free hand over his naked chest, pinch a nipple between thumb and forefinger.

John lets his mind wander back to their first meeting, plays it in his head like a favorite movie:

The way Mr. Finch was browsing through the pages of John’s files, big chunks of text where everything should have been blocked out in black.

When he looked up at John, John noticed Mr. Finch’s eyes for the first time, all bright and intelligent like they already knew all of his secrets.

_Well, as it turned out, they really did._

John runs his thumb over the vein on the underside of his cock, then all the way back up to the head so he can tease the slit.

His eyes are screwed shut so he can imagine Mr. Finch’s hands, those crisp white cuffs and the blinking cuff links over his wrists, long, capable fingers with the nails trimmed short.

“Mr. Reese,” he had said, and John remembers the cadence of his voice, the way his name sounded in Mr. Finch's mouth.

John shudders on his couch, teasing a nipple with a blunt fingernail while he jerks himself off, quick and rough and desperate.

And _, oh,_ the way Mr. Finch had been so sure that John would agree to everything back then, when John hadn't even made up his mind: the transfer papers for the CIA already laid out on his desk, like there was no question in it at all, like John was already _his._

John shakes with the thought, drops of precome gathering at the head of his cock. He smoothes them down his shaft, adding a twist on every upstroke.

It wasn’t a long meeting, back then. Mr. Finch already knew everything he needed to know, and they didn’t even shake hands after. He just gave John a brief nod and left, walking down the hall, but, what if - _what if he had asked him to kneel instead?_

What if Mr. Finch had said “Would you please bend over this desk for me” or sat down in his luxurious office chair and unbuttoned his pants, grabbed John’s hair and _pushed him down_ to kneel on the carpet, to lick and suck and swallow around his cock?

John whimpers, his hand wandering down from his chest all the way over his belly, the inside of his thighs, until he can press two fingers against his perineum and then lower still, circling his hole.

He images one firm hand in his neck, bending him down over the desk.

Mr. Finch would be pulling down John's underwear and then unbutton his own pants, the sharp noise of the zipper behind him where John was balancing his weight on his arms.

He would make quite the image spread out over confidential documents on polished wood, panting and needy.

John spreads his legs wider, keeps pushing up into his hand while he slowly works a finger into himself, nearly sobbing with it. It's too dry, not enough preparation, but he enjoys the pain of it, the way it softens his arousal, stops him from coming immediately.

He imagines Mr. Finch behind him, fucking into John: pushing the head of his cock behind the tight ring of muscle, hands firmly gripping John’s hips. John can almost feel how his weight would feel on top of John, his breath tickling John's neck.

John moans in desperation, speeding up his movements, circling his thumb over the head of his cock.

He is spread out over the cushions and panting with his mouth open, sweaty and flushed, working himself furiously and fucking himself on his hand.

It’s good, it’s perfect, and John doesn’t want to come yet, wants to stretch it out. He’s so far gone already, his thighs quivering with the effort, his thrusts coming faster still, more erratic by the minute.

And, oh, how Mr. Finch would be _patient_ , unforgiving: deep hard thrusts that would graze John’s prostate but would never be quite enough until John was clawing at the desk in desperation, _please, please, please._

John imagines how Mr. Finch would finally reach around and take John's neglected cock into his hand, stroking him in time with his thrusts until John came so hard he’d be seeing stars, spilling all over Mr. Finch’s hand.

John barely makes it to the end of his fantasy before he can feel his balls drawing up and pleasure coiling hot and low in his belly, and then he’s gone, shuddering through his orgasm.

He lies there, completely boneless, his heart pounding against his rib cage.

He is still lazily tugging at his spent cock, wanting to make it _last_ even when he’s so sensitive that he’s aching with every touch, eyes closed to replay that last scene over and over in his head, the way Mr. Finch would shiver against him, his hips snapping forward, the way he would say John’s name on the edge of orgasm, a breathy moan against John’s back.

\--

At the end of the next day, John takes a deep breath before knocking on Mr. Finch's office door.

“Come in.”

John enters the room and places his mission report file on the desk. Mr. Finch had told him in no uncertain terms that John would be reporting to him at the end of every day from now on, so he could assess if John was taking unnecessary risks out in the field.

“Today went smoothly, saved a number, delivered the bad guys to the police,” John drawls.

He looks around, trying to read some of the titles of the books Mr. Finch keeps at his office.

Mr. Finch doesn't look up.

“I'll be done in a minute,” he says. “Please take a seat.”

John leisurely browses the book collection before sitting down on the couch.

“You mind if I clean my weapon while I'm waiting?”

“Not at all,” Mr. Finch says, turning a page.

John shrugs, takes out his supplies from his bag and starts working.

They spend an hour like that, sitting in comfortable silence, before Mr. Finch looks up, blinks a few times and says: “I apologize, Mr. Reese, I allowed myself to get distracted and quite forgot the time. You wanted to discuss the mission today, yes?”

John, who is paging through a copy of _Stress Fractures in Titanium_ with great concentration, looks up at him.

“Yeah, sure,” he says, getting up.

He places the book back on the shelf and takes a seat across from Mr. Finch's desk.

Mr. Finch opens the file.

“I, uh. Wanted to say thank you, actually,” John says. “For giving me this job. It's – I like it much more than I liked working for the agency, and I get the chance to help people, too, that's... I didn't think I'd get to do that, so. Thank you.”

“You're very welcome,” Mr. Finch says, and his voice sounds almost soft.

He reads a few pages in silence, and John leans back and watches him, the way the light reflects off his glasses, how he sits there in his immaculate suit and tie, untouchable.

“If you want, you're free to spend your time off here after missions while you wait for the debriefing,” Mr. Finch says without looking up. “I don't mind a bit of company while I'm working, and at least I can make sure that you're not out there doing anything stupid in the meantime.”

John's smile is so big his muscles hurt a little with it.

“Really?” He asks.

Mr. Finch looks up at him.

“You've been performing admirably so far, much better than any other agent who worked on the irrelevant numbers before you,” he says, and John blushes.

“I could, uh. I could bring dinner, sometime,” John says before he has a chance to think it through. “It's pretty late, and you don't look like you've been eating.”

Mr. Finch turns a page. There is a moment of silence, which probably indicates surprise.

“I haven't eaten,” he allows, carefully. “I'm surprised you care, Mr. Reese.”

John shrugs.

“You gave me this job, I owe you.”

Mr. Finch turns a page and gives him a skeptical look.

“Also Root has a betting pool running to see how long I'll last here, and I'd like to see her face when I show up at your office and bring you dinner,” John adds.

That actually startles a laugh out of Mr. Finch, low and amused.

“She doesn't trust people easily. It's something we have in common.”

“Maybe you can trust me, someday,” John says. “Eating something I brought in without having it checked in the lab for poison might be a good start.”

The corner of Mr. Finch's mouth quirks up.

“I'd like that, Mr. Reese. Oh, and one more thing?”

John tilts his head a little.

“If you think this means I will go easy on you when you inevitably feel heroic again and endanger your life while saving a kitten from a tree, I'd like to inform you that this is not the case. Much the opposite: I don't deal well with disappointment.”

“Noted,” John says, and then, because he can't keep his mouth shut: “So we're saving kittens, too? What about puppies?”

“Dismissed, Mr. Reese,” Mr. Finch says.

John closes the office door behind him and walks down the corridor, whistling.

–

**PART II: HAROLD**

**__**Does John drink coffee?

Harold doesn’t remember seeing him with a cup at the base of operations, but then again, the coffee in the staff kitchen is horrible, he will have to get something done about that --

“Harold?” John asks behind him.

John sounds amused. His sleeves are rolled up where he has insisted on helping with the cleanup when Harold didn’t even _cook:_ Thai takeout, picked up from that little hole-in-the-wall place on the way home.

Harold had asked John to join him after their latest debriefing was complete, with John already halfway through the door, startling both John and himself.

And, even more surprising: the fact that John went along with it, shrugged into his coat and followed Harold out of the door.

It is easier than Harold had thought.

There are containers of fragrant rice and spicy curry between them on the table, vibrant yellow and red and green. There's beer for John and a glass of white wine for Harold.

Harold regrets not opting for something stronger, something to calm his nerves.

_An espresso machine for the bullpen, and maybe an order of that lovely dark roast that Nathan likes?_

Harold recognizes his own brain’s evident attempt at diversion and takes another sip of his wine, frustrated.

It’s _ridiculous,_ too: it was merely a dinner between colleagues, an invitation that John was too polite to refuse.

They have barely spoken in the last few weeks, which might partly be due to the staggering amount of work that the irrelevant list has produced recently, and in part because John has been more elusive than ever.

Instead of stopping by his office at noon, John has started to take his lunch break in a park outside, has begun a routine of leaving early after completed missions, occasionally skipping the debriefing altogether, just leaving a file.

And it’s not that Harold particularly misses John bringing sniper rifles into his work space to reassemble (he'll _let him_ , which doesn't mean that he enjoys being around firearms), it’s just that he misses _John_ : the easy companionship between them, John's teasing, the way he tried to coax Harold’s secrets out of him with every innocent remark.

There are things Harold kept noticing even then, but told himself that he must be imagining them. There was the flush that spread over John’s throat when they were standing too close, the way he was always in Harold’s _space_ , looking up through his lashes and putting his hand on the back of the chair, looking over Harold's shoulder.

Harold shakes himself out of his stupor and takes two small cups down from the cupboard, getting his hands busy in an attempt to clear his head.

John is leaning against the fridge in his crisp white shirt, the top button undone.

“Do you care for coffee?” Harold asks, motioning vaguely to the shelf. “I have a selection of teas I could offer you, too, if that should be more to your taste.”

“Sencha Green,” John says, softly, nodding at a golden box within easy reach of the counter. “That’s what you always drink, isn’t it?”

“I don’t remember telling you that,” Harold says, squinting at him, and John laughs, a deep, lovely sound that rumbles through his chest.

“I was an international spy once, Harold, remember?”

Oh, Harold is in _so much trouble._ He has insisted that John call him “Harold” and not “Mr. Finch” when they have dinner together, but the way John says his name is... distracting.

Then, suddenly, the smile disappears from John's face, it just _stops_ , like he has caught himself doing something he wasn’t supposed to do.

“I, uhm. I should probably go, I have taken up enough of your time already,” John says, one hand coming up to rub his neck.

Harold tries to swallow the wave of disappointment that rises in his throat.

“Yes, you - I’m sure you have plans for tomorrow, and it is rather late,” Harold says.

Neither of them moves, and then they both speak at once.

“Thanks for dinner,” John says, the very same second Harold says: “Is there something I have done to make you uncomfortable, John?”

John blinks at him, his face unreadable.

Harold takes a deep, frustrated breath.

“It’s just that -- Look, it was a very long week and I have spent too much of it in mind-numbingly boring meetings, so bear with me if I should overstep, but I have the impression that you’ve been avoiding me lately. If there is something that I have done to offend you, I’d like to make it very clear that it was completely unintentional.”

John rubs his hand over his face, his lips pressed together in something that looks like a pained smile.

“Yeah, you’re not -- you didn’t -- God, Harold,” he finally manages, putting his hands on the back of one of the chairs and leaning against it.

Harold watches the way John’s back arches when he leans down, the shifting muscles beneath his shirt before guiltily averting his eyes.

“I _have_ been avoiding you, but not because of anything you’ve done. I just didn’t want to complicate things.”

“Complicate things how?” Harold asks instantly, because apparently his mouth works independently from his brain now.

John stares at the wood of the kitchen table with great concentration.

“Because of how I _feel_ ,” John says, looking like the last word is leaving an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Oh. _Oh._

“About me?” Harold asks, voice rising in pitch on the last word, because John surely can’t be saying what Harold _thinks_ he’s saying --

John turns away, as if he regrets having revealed even this much.

“Look, I know that it’s pointless to wish for something that you can’t have, I know that,” John says, and Harold’s heart breaks for him, for all of the things that John must have wanted in his life and wasn’t able to have: stability, normalcy, a family, a _home._

“This job is really – it's one of the best things that has happened to me, and I genuinely enjoy doing it. And I'm glad that we're friends, I like... I like spending time with you. But what I want, I'm not gonna get.”

Harold opts to ignore his own fears in favor of making John look less _miserable_ , because even if he should be reading John completely wrong, there is no way he’ll just let him leave like this, shoulders slumped, the relaxation of the evening slowly seeping out of him.

“What do you want, John?” Harold asks softly.

John turns around with an expression in his eyes that makes Harold feel like the inside of his chest has been replaced with ice water.

John’s shoulders look unbearably tense, every muscle gearing up for a fight.

“Are you really going to make me say it?” He asks, and he looks _furious_ , as if Harold is being deliberately cruel.

Something of his confusion must translate into Harold’s face, because suddenly the firm set of John’s mouth softens, and all the anger drains out of him.

“Harold, you -- you _must know_ ,” he says, helplessly, “you must know how much --“

Harold steps closer and John doesn’t move away, if anything, his body strains _towards_ him, his grip white-knuckled on the back of the chair.

Harold is no friend of drawing conclusions based on insufficient data, but this is different, this time he is sure.

He reaches out and puts his palm against John’s cheek, and John sways a little, his eyelids closing at the touch.

“I know _now_ ,” Harold says, and his voice sounds odd to his own ears, like he barely finds the breath to speak, “John, how could you ever think that there was something that I would deny you --“

He never gets to finish that thought because suddenly John surges forward to kiss him, and Harold grips the fabric of his shirt to pull him close.

Harold considers the feelings of the moment: John’s lips are soft, and there is a faint rasp of stubble pressing against Harold’s skin. John’s heart is beating rapidly in his chest where Harold has pressed his hands against him, a wild _thump, thump, thump_ under his fingertips.

John kisses him so carefully, as if he’s afraid of doing something wrong.

Harold moves a hand up to stroke the back of his neck, reassuring him, and John makes a noise low in his throat and pulls Harold closer, their bodies pressed flush against each other.

Harold runs his tongue against the seam of John’s lips until they open for him, and then they’re kissing for real: deep and famished, with Harold stroking small circles against the nape of John’s neck and John sighing into his mouth.

John’s hands are on Harold’s arms and shoulders before traveling down to his hips, as if he can’t decide where to touch first.

They stop kissing for a moment to catch their breaths and stare at each other, and Harold can’t help the sudden burst of laughter that escapes him.

John looks at him in slight confusion, but he looks better now, _relaxed,_ a little less like the sky might come crashing down any second.

“I just thought _Nathan is going to hold this over my head forever_ ,” Harold says, wiping his eyes. “Not - not you, I mean. That it took me so long to _notice_.”

He reaches out to take John’s hand, entwining their fingers.

John stares down at their joined hands between them, mesmerized.

“John, I -- You can have whatever you want from me, but there’s no obligation to --“

It seems to become a pattern that John leans in to kiss him whenever Harold wants to make a _point about something_ , but John just seems so happy, his hands cradling Harold’s face as if he was something valuable, a treasure.

“Can we --“ John starts, kissing him again like he’s afraid that Harold will disappear under his hands. “Bedroom?”

“ _Yes,”_ Harold says, taking John's wrist and leading him down the hallway.

It’s a shock to see John in his bedroom, in front of the wallpaper, the familiar curtains, but Harold has no time to dwell on it.

John kicks the door shut behind them and bends to kiss Harold’s throat, the line of his jaw.

“Clothes,” Harold says, impatiently, tugging at John’s shirt, and John laughs again, pressing a kiss to Harold’s forehead.

“So, no more full sentences from you, Harold?” He asks.

“You’re gorgeous, I would very much like to have you spread out on my bed,” Harold replies instantly, and John’s hands are _shaking_ when he undoes the buttons on his shirt, unbuckles his belt.

John sheds his undershirt and steps out of his pants so that he is standing there in just his boxers, the line of his erection visible through the fabric.

He looks _breathtaking._

Harold reaches up to slip off his tie and start on the buttons of his vest, distracted by the sight of John’s bare chest, the line of his shoulders.

“Here, let me,” John mumbles, gently pushing Harold's hands out of the way and opening the remaining buttons on Harold’s vest and shirt.

He has stepped close enough that Harold can put his hands on John’s sides, his palms on bare skin, and John draws in a big gulp of air, leaning against him.

Harold lets him slide off his shirt and pulls John down with him onto the bed, their legs tangling together, his hands on the small of John’s back, fingertips traveling over his spine.

Harold has been half-hard ever since they started kissing, but the sight of John, stripped down to his boxers, wonderfully aroused by him, has brought him there all the way.

They are sliding against each other, John placing soft kisses against Harold’s neck, his hips moving lazily against him, the front of his boxers wet and sticky with precome.

Harold reaches down between them to cup John through his underwear and John groans, his whole body shuddering against him.

“Please, I want - I want to make you come, want you to fuck me,” John mumbles feverishly against Harold’s neck, but Harold can tell by the way John’s hips are stuttering against him that John is close, and settles for pushing down his underwear and getting a hand around John's cock.

“We’ll do all that, we have so much time,” Harold says, and John makes a noise that almost sounds like a sob, hands clenching on Harold’s arms.

“On your back, come on,” Harold says, nudging him along.

John lets him, and they shift until Harold is on top of him and finds a good angle to steadily jerk John’s cock.

John puts a hand against the sensitive skin of Harold’s neck and pulls him down for urgent, sloppy kissing, moaning into his mouth when Harold drags his thumb across the head of his cock, runs his fingers along the shaft.

“Yes, so good, _yes_ ,” John pants beneath him, where he is thrusting up urgently into Harold’s grip.

Harold circles the head of his cock with his thumb, drawing a desperate wail from John.

He speeds up his movements, working him with a firm grip that has John throwing his head back, and it doesn’t take long until John is shaking apart in his arms.

Harold grabs John’s discarded undershirt to wipe his hand with it and clean John up before he is pulled down again, John kissing him breathlessly, hands tugging at Harold’s belt.

“John, it’s… it’s okay, you don’t need to--,” Harold says.

He doesn’t want John to do anything because he feels obligated to, or worse: because he considers it some kind of payback.

_God, what is he doing_ , he is John’s _boss_ , how could he possibly think that they were on equal footing --

“Please, Harold, I want to touch you. _Want you so much_ ,” John mumbles against his lips, and Harold’s doubts instantly disappear.

It’s not about the touching or the sex, it’s about _Harold_ touching him, and it takes one look at John to be sure that John certainly isn’t doing this out of a mere sense of obligation.

If John is only drawing half as much pleasure from this as Harold did from touching him --

Harold moves back and John _whines_ at the loss of contact.

“Let me just,” Harold says, making short work of his belt and fly and getting rid of his pants before leaning down again.

“Hello John,” Harold says, watching the way the skin around John’s eyes crinkles when he smiles: real, unguarded.

John pulls him close, his hands coming around Harold’s waist to stroke down his sides and over his belly before dipping down between his legs.

John slides his palm along the length of Harold’s cock in his boxers, and Harold can feel the warmth of his hand even through the expensive silk.

Harold curses under his breath.

It has been _too long_ , all this time of perfunctory jerk-off-sessions, his body a mere irritation.

There was the occasional one-night-stand with people who lost interest immediately after, who probably didn’t even care that much in the first place. Then, those few times when he used the services of a particularly discreet agency: that feeling right after, when he was staring at the ceiling and feeling so completely, desperately _alone._

John's hand is still stroking him, warm and sure, and Harold fights the urge to just rut against him, press John's palm down hard against the front of his underwear. Harold desperately wants it to last, but he is so achingly hard in his boxers, and John is apparently determined to bring him over the edge.

John doesn’t waste any time. He tugs Harold’s underwear down so he can close a hand around Harold’s erection, stroke the warm, silky skin and spread the drops of precome over the glans, light, deliberate touches that drive Harold insane.

“ _Let me make you come_ ,” John says, his voice rough, and Harold’s arms are shaking where he is holding himself up, John’s clever hands taking him to the brink.

“I want to, Harold. Please, I _want_ to,” John says, and Harold puts his right hand over John’s, entwines their fingers the same way he did before, in the kitchen.

“Like this,” Harold says, voice nearly breaking on the words, and _shows_ him, moving his hand in perfect sync with John’s.

It doesn’t take long until Harold makes a choked little sob, spilling warm and wet over their joined hands.

John eases him through it in steady strokes that make Harold weak in the knees and he collapses onto John, unable to hold himself up.

For a while, they just lie there together, in a panting, sweaty heap, John idly running his fingers through Harold’s hair, until Harold realizes that his entire weight is resting on John and makes an attempt to shift position.

John’s arms close even tighter around him, his nose buried in Harold’s neck.

“Don’t go,” he says, almost inaudibly, sounding half asleep, and Harold’s entire chest _hurts._

“I’m not leaving, John,” he says, kissing his chest, right above his heart. “I’m not leaving you.”

John doesn’t say anything, but Harold can feel the tremor running through him and just waits until it’s over, until John’s arms relax fractionally against him.

“I’ll just make this a bit more comfortable, yes?” Harold asks.

John nods, as if he doesn’t trust himself to speak, and Harold leans down to brush a kiss against John’s temple.

Harold moves until he’s lying beside John, pressed up against his side.

John’s arm comes around him, keeping him close, and Harold pulls up the blanket over both of them.

“Just for a moment,” Harold says, drowsy and sated.

While the shower seems like a tempting prospect, it _is_ an awfully long way to the bathroom, and John is warm and pliant beside him, so Harold lets himself close his eyes.

**\--**

When Harold wakes up, the sunlight is pooling in large golden rectangles over the sheets on the bed: morning, then, or early noon.

He carefully straightens his back and shoulders, stretching the soreness out of his muscles as well as he can without waking up John, who is still asleep beside him, his arm slung possessively around Harold’s waist.

Feeling Harold stir beside him, he scoots a little closer and throws a leg over Harold’s, presses his face against the warm skin of Harold’s throat, all warm breath and the slight rasp of stubble on his chin.

John has been snuggled up against him like this all night.

Every time Harold woke up, blinking into the semi-darkness of the bedroom, John had been curled around him protectively.

Harold was surprised at how _good_ it felt, how it wasn’t suffocating at all to be so wrapped up in one another, John’s arms curled around him in a way that made him feel safe and anchored.

The smile that tugs on Harold’s lips at the sight of John, comfortably spread out in his own bed, feels strange on Harold’s face, like he is exercising muscles he hasn’t used in a long time.

Harold pets John’s head, runs his fingers through his hair and down to the nape of his neck, fingertips caressing the sensitive skin in small circles.

John’s face looks relaxed, strangely unguarded, the line of his mouth soft and happy.

Harold can’t resist: he leans in to press a kiss against John’s slack lips, feeling him sigh and shift closer.

John’s long limbs are sleep-warm where he is curled against him, and Harold can feel the outline of John’s morning erection pressing against his leg.

John has been shifting closer, the smooth sheets falling away between them until it’s just skin on skin, and John is _moving_ now, rutting up against Harold -- not too insistently, just the lazy thrusting of John’s hips against him while he nuzzles Harold’s throat, eyes still closed.

Harold carefully disentangles himself from John’s embrace and draws back the covers, exposing John’s chest, his belly, the sharp angle of his hipbones.

He lets his hands wander over John’s body, drawing soft, pleased sounds from him.

Harold starts at his shoulders, runs his hands over John’s arms, along the lines of his collarbones and down his sternum.

John is in ludicrously good shape, all firm, lean muscle with only the slightest softness around his belly. Harold lets his fingers stroke over John’s chest before bending down to circle one nipple with the tip of his tongue, teasing it into hardness.

John’s hips jerk against him and he mumbles a string of nonsense words, sighing deeply, his cock resting flushed and hard against his stomach, sliding up against Harold’s hip.

Harold kisses a trail down John’s chest and belly all the way to the nest of pubic hair, caressing the insides of his thighs before bending down to press his lips against John’s cock, pressing closed-mouthed kisses along the length of his shaft.

John’s eyelids flutter, and his breathing speeds up.

Harold sucks the head into his mouth, one hand gripping the base of John’s cock, the other cupping his balls, a light touch on sensitive skin.

Harold can see the exact moment John shudders awake, his gaze unfocused, his body already far ahead of him.

His hips are pushing up instinctively, his erection getting harder in the wet heat of Harold’s mouth.

John blinks, his eyes focusing on Harold, groaning when Harold moves his hand on his cock, jerking him slow and steady.

Harold sucks him down a little deeper, and John’s breath stutters in his chest.

“Harold, _Jesus_ ,” John moans, voice rough.

Harold makes a low humming noise and John shudders beneath him, pushing himself up on his elbows so he can watch Harold work, head bobbing between his legs.

Harold lets John’s cock slip out of his mouth, his hand still moving, his thumb teasing the spot just beneath the glans that has John buck up into his hand with a little sob.

Finally, Harold bends down to lick away the drops of precome that have gathered at the head, teasing the slit with the tip of his tongue.

John _whines_ beneath him, hands shaking where he is grabbing the sheets. He lets himself fall back against the pillow.

“ _Please_ ,” John pants, flushed and desperate, and Harold takes him into his mouth again, his head moving up and down in time with the movement of his hand, driving John out of his mind.

“Harold, fuck, I’m--,” John chokes out, and Harold works him harder, swallowing around his cock until John makes a helpless whimpering noise and fills up his mouth.

It’s too many things to take in at once: the way John is spread out beneath him, his skin glistening with sweat, the noises he makes, reduced to a whimpering mess by the things Harold does to him.

Harold has only been distantly aware of his own arousal up until now, focused purely on John’s pleasure.

It's not difficult to see why: John makes quite a sight, spread out in front of him. He is panting heavily and looking thoroughly debauched.

Having John fall apart under his hands and mouth is so intensely, unbearably erotic that Harold barely has time to process it before he feels himself thrust against the sweaty-slick sheets, his own orgasm shuddering through him with unexpected force.

Harold lets himself sink down against the smooth fabric, wet with his own release, too spent to care.

He runs his hand over John’s thigh, drawing circles and numbers, absently tapping Morse code against his skin.

John's insistent fingertips on his shoulder drag him out of his blissed-out stupor, and Harold moves up to lie beside him, wincing at the tacky feeling on his stomach and thighs.

John barely lets Harold’s head hit the pillow before he leans down to kiss him, strong arms coming around Harold’s chest and tucking him firmly against John’s body.

“ _Thank you,”_ John says, his voice full of wonder, and with a sharp pang in his chest Harold realizes that John hadn’t been convinced that last night had been _real_ , that he probably had expected to wake up in his empty bed in his own apartment.

Harold kisses him, too overcome with emotion to find words, but as usual, John seems to hear him anyway, everything that Harold isn’t able to say.

“You and me, shower, now,” Harold says decisively against John’s neck, kissing his pulse point.

John laughs.

“Conserving water?” He asks. “I didn’t know you were so worried about the environment, _Mr. Finch_.”

Harold gives him a mildly reproachful glance.

“Careful, _Mr. Reese_ , the tile is rather expensive Italian marble and would be very uncomfortable to kneel on, I’d think,” Harold says, and John’s eyes widen at that.

“Shall we?” Harold asks nonchalantly, drawing back the covers, and John scrambles to catch up with him.

**\-- FIN**


End file.
